1936's Mitt Romney

In 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt faced his first reelection. Roosevelt began the year sliding in the polls, facing an increasingly hostile media, a still sluggish economy, and the big business-friendly Supreme Court had recently knocked down an array of New Deal legislative accomplishments, particularly the National Recovery Administration. The Republicans had an excellent chance to retake the White House.

The chief dividing issue at the time was the New Deal.  The Democrats supported it in general; the Republicans disliked it in general.  Instead of nominating someone on the fringe ideologically as their 1936 Presidential nominee, the Republicans picked a "moderate who sought simply to make the message that he would run the New Deal in a more efficient manner.

That man was Alf Landon, the 1936 version of Mitt Romney.

The selection of Mitt Romney also echoes the strategic thinking of Republicans in 1936. At the time, Republicans were divided, but big business interests, particularly the du Pont family, simply wanted someone who could win. Over objections from the party’s far right faction, they nominated Alf Landon, a very moderate governor from the Midwest. Landon’s ability to win in Kansas during the Democratic sweep year of 1934 (back then, Kansas was an anti-corporate bastion) showed his cross-partisan appeal, much as Romney’s victory in Massachusetts has convinced many that he can win in blue swing states. As a supporter of some New Deal policies, Landon was vulnerable to the flip-flopping charge. But like the national GOP strategists of today, who support Romney despite passing a health reform law nearly identical to Obamacare, the planners in the thirties hoped Landon’s left of center governance would be viewed as a form of responsible pragmatism to the American electorate.

Romney’s political biography, as a businessman reformer who ran against the corrupt Massachusetts machine, could be compared to Landon, a Bull Moose reformer and oilman who shook up Kansas politics.  Alf Landon was very similar to FDR on their platforms on the New Deal, the chief political wedge issue at the time.  This is very similar to the comparison between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.  Mittens and Obama seem to be on the same page for almost every legislative goal except for tax policy on the rich.

You might be asking, who is Alf Landon again?  Exactly, this election is mostly forgotten from campaign history books, largely because Roosevelt ended up crushing his opponent, the GOP’s Alf Landon, with a sweep of the entire country, losing only Maine and Vermont.

I am slightly surprised that Republicans haven't mentioned how similar the 1936 election is to the 2012 election.  This election highlights the danger of nominating someone who has so many similarities as the president on so many contentious issues.